Hey there, welcome to Life Noggin

We're just about done with the winter in the northern hemisphere but until that

sweet warm spring weather arrives

We're stuck seeing our breath every time you exhale outside. Well what if I told

you that's not really your breath at all?

But before I go into that, let's talk about what actually is happening when

you breathe. When you inhale, your diaphragm in the muscles between your

ribs called the intercostal muscles

contract, which then expand your chest cavity. When this happens the pressure in

your chest cavity decreases past the outside air pressure

which causes the air from outside your body to flow into your lungs.

The air contains about 78 percent nitrogen 21 percent oxygen and 1 percent

argon

But when the air reaches the tiny air sacs in the lungs called the Alveoli,

some of that oxygen passes capillaries blood vessels

and eventually reaches the heart to reward us for providing the blood with

oxygen the capillaries give us their waste products like carbon dioxide

Talk about a bad deal, owh, when you're ready to exhale your diaphragm into a

Gluteus muscle relax,

which makes your chest cavity get smaller and causes the air to flow out

of your lung

and out of your mouth and nose. This exhaled air has a little less oxygen

than the inhaled air,

but also about 4 percent more carbon dioxide. But more interestingly you were

also breathing out water vapor

when this warm water vapor reaches the cold air outside, it quickly condenses to

form a fog, similar to a cloud, and that is what you see

It's not necessarily your breath but rather the water that comes along for the ride.

So next time you go for a walk in the cold, you can pretend that you're a cloud

breathing dragon

you're welcome in advance, I wish I was a dragon

Oh hey, I forgot I can do that. As usual I'll be answering a new question every Thursday

so ask

anything you wanna know in the comment section below or on Facebook and Twitter

if you want even more Life Noggin, check out this video we did on deja vu

I'm Blako. This has been Life Noggin. Don't forget to keep on thinking

and breathe. Make sure you breathe.